Meditations On A Sick Rave

Going rave is sick. In David Cameron’s broken, half dying Britain the young are (for the most part) exploited, despondent wage slaves and, for many of us, going to a dubstep night and munching beans till we chew our very lips off is the only respite we have left.

I’ve been to a multitude of banging raves this year and I feel I’ve learned about music, people and myself. Whilst it would be peak to actually write a list of rave commandments, here are some light meditations and pieces of advice on enjoying yourself at a sick rave.

Moshing

Even back when I was a metalhead, I didn’t really care for moshing, though it is sometimes cool to see bare man moshing at a rave. For me, a rave is about togetherness, about putting aside your differences to collectively enjoy VIVEK’s primo remix of ‘Top A Top’ dropping, and as such I don’t personally participate in moshing at raves.

I get why people do it though, it’s become a signifier of the selecta/mc smashing it and it’s cool sometimes, much like a dvd case line of wonk, is best enjoyed once an evening. During a headline/tear up set is optimum, however, if you’re going to mosh, please be mindful of the fucking sound desk.

It’s the worst when some fucking idiot forgets what spacial awareness is and demolishes the rig. Music randomly stopping mid-set can be a genius thing, but only when pre-planned. Which leads me neatly on to:

Climbing Up On The Sound Desk

Climbing up on the sound desk is unanimously bad, if you are a girl and white, you need to pay special attention to this. Climbing up on the sound desk/monitors may seem like perfectly good bants, but whether it’s jumping onto the sound desk or crawling ‘seductively’ all over the monitors, it ain’t gonna work and you’re going to end up fucking the sound desk up again.

Whilst everyone will most likely be nicely MD’d, and rave culture is intrinsically based around being sound to people, there won’t be any hard feelings. But be ready to be quietly and justifiably sniggered at by anyone and everyone who recognises you in the smoking area.

This is a sound desk, basically, don’t climb on it.

Drugs

Taking large amounts of stimulants is a fine fucking art, it’s all too easy to munch one too many pills/lines/intravenous injections and fall into a corner, drooling and trouting your night away. If this happens, try to stand up and enjoy yourself, merely sitting down on powerful psychedelic drugs like MDMA can fuck you up beyond belief.

On the other hand, if you see someone trouting out, or otherwise losing their mind whilst on copious amounts of terrible, terrible drugs, don’t point and laugh, because if you’re doing that, you’re probably not having such a good time.

Be Nice

If someone starts chatting to you about the music, don’t just par them off, don’t be rude to anyone and don’t critique other people’s wavey shapes, if you are, you’re one of those aforementioned people who isn’t having such a good time/an arsehole.

Be Nice

Etiquette

Don’t worry about rave etiquette, it’s a term that gets thrown around a fair bit, but ultimately it’s meaningless, have fun and have respect for everyone around you. Don’t get pissed off because someone bumps into you, but at the same time be careful, use your common sense to gauge whether your particularly hard, MD infused style of skanking is leading to people being elbowed/barged.